Another attempted swipe against reality this Sunday afternoon with a serenade of some sort of sound — today it’s music in a reflection of our conundrum made up nowadays that’s really not a mystery nor an enigma, but obvious and dangerous and frightening.
Yet also includes a sensual aspect, easing the voyage.
However, before we get started a sad note off some incredible music encompassing decades through a shitload of classic songs, especially griping my teenage years (h/t Susie this morning):
Blame It on the Bossa Nova
On Broadway
Walking in the Rain
You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'
We Gotta Get Out of This Place
Kicks
Hungry
I Just Can't Help Believing
Here You Come Again
Don't Know Much
Never Gonna Let You Go…Cynthia Weil, songwriter
dead at 82 pic.twitter.com/XCRJBgSga3— Gary Wells (@soulrideblog) June 3, 2023
Although I knew the music, I don’t believe I’d ever heard (or read) about Weil, but that just says a shitload about my facilities. Yet she was outstanding with a huge playlist.
In the face of that, a nutshell via an obit in The New York Times yesterday afternoon:
Cynthia Weil, who with her writing partner and husband, Barry Mann, formed one of the most potent songwriting teams of the 1960s and beyond, churning out enduring hits like the Drifters’ “On Broadway” and the Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feelin’,” signature tunes of the baby boomer era, died on Thursday at her home in Beverly Hills, Calif. She was 82.
[…]
“There were, like, three or four writing rooms there, and each room had an upright piano and an ashtray, because everybody smoked like crazy back then,” Mr. Mann said in a telephone interview on Friday. “Even though it was sparse, we worked and worked, and,” he added with considerable understatement, “some good things came out of there.”
Those good things included two soaring, almost sepulchral No. 1 singles for the Righteous Brothers: “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feelin’,” from 1964, which in 1999 the music licensing agency BMI ranked as the most played song on radio and television of the 20th century, and “(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration,” from 1966.
Songs that ended up with a top pick of musicians. And for a long, long time.
Meanwhile and onwards to today’s serenade entity, Enigma, whose music floated through a huge part of my daily activities in the 1990s. Don’t listen at all nowadays, except for today and the serenade!
The music is kind of hard to explain, mysterious and sensual. Generally called ‘New Wave,’ it’s a sound all its own. Enigma was founded by Romanian-German musician and producer Michael Cretu, and the group produced some imaginative, sensual-sounding music.
And after listening to Enigma for the first time in years this moring (except for some isolated tune that popped up in my brain) it seems an appropriate sound for our era — seemingly a mystery that shit is so shitty, yet it’s right-in-our-face obvious.
First out of the box is “Mea Culpa,” off their 1990 debut album, ‘MCMXC a.D.,’ and ignites our weird-ass, yet a nifty musical journey:
Next, “Return to Innocence,” from their second album, ‘The Cross of Changes,’ continues to flavor the mood:
In the cycle and also of their first album, “Sadeness” (full version), which weaves images with music — was reportedly a big, international hit, going to #1 in 14 countries. I didn’t hear it until nearly five years after its release, but that really doesn’t say anything.
Let the sound hit:
Beyond a different pillar but with quiet sadness, “I Love You … I’ll Kill You,” also off ‘Cross Of Changes,’ and really isn’t what the title implies:
Lyrics are needed for this one:
I see love, I can see passion
I feel danger, I feel obsession
Don’t play games with the ones who love you
Cause I hear a voice who says:
I love you … I’ll kill you …Loneliness, I feel loneliness, in my room …
Loneliness, I feel loneliness, in my room …
Loneliness, I feel loneliness, in my room …
Loneliness, I feel loneliness, in my room …
Loneliness, I feel loneliness, in my room …Look into the mirror of your soul
Love and hate are one in all
Sacrifice turns to revenge and believe me
You’ll see the face who’ll say:I love you … I’ll kill you …
But I’ll love you foreveLoneliness, I feel loneliness, in my room …
Loneliness, I feel loneliness, in my room …
Loneliness, I feel loneliness, in my room …
And closing out this sensual, sad serenade, my most-favorite of Enigma songs, “The Eyes Of Truth,” a nuisance not too prevalent nowadays (also off ‘Cross Of Changes‘):
And that’s a wrap.
Emotionally tinged, or not, once again here we are…
(Illustration out front: Salvador Dalí’s 1958 painting, “Meditative Rose,” and found here.)